


it's a cruel game (i cannot lose)

by Iris_Duncan_72



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Violence, Child Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Massacre, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, Murder, Non-Human Jaskier | Dandelion, Not Canon Compliant, PLEASE HEED THE TAGS, Possession, Sharing a Body, let's just call it, not even a little bit, not super graphic but hella fucking present, what's it called when a possessed child kills everyone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:53:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23309452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iris_Duncan_72/pseuds/Iris_Duncan_72
Summary: There's something to be said for defeating your demons and wearing their fangs around your throat to scare the rest of them off.Jaskier helps Geralt with this.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 9
Kudos: 169





	it's a cruel game (i cannot lose)

_Help me._

_Somebody help me._

_Please._

_Make it stop._

_Stop._

_Please, please._

_Stop it._

_Stop it._

_Help me._

These thoughts run through Geralt’s head a hundred times, a thousand times. His young mind loops them like a broken record, desperate and feverish as he cowers beneath the belt his mother wields so cruelly. He can never escape her, never find somewhere small enough to hide where she won’t find him, though he still tries. His resistance angers her further, makes her scream and spit as she lashes him till he crumples and bleeds.

Geralt doesn’t know why his mother hates him but he thinks it has something to do with his father, whoever he was. She only mentions him when she’s through a whole bottle of wine or something stronger, by which point she isn’t particularly coherent. All Geralt knows about the man is that his eyes were gold – and Geralt certainly didn’t get his mother’s eyes.

The beating is particularly bad tonight and his lips are bleeding where he’s bitten them to keep from crying out, muffling his screams to whimpers. His mother caught him in the ribs with the toe of her boot and now he can hardly breathe, the pain blinding, so he stays curled up small on the floor as she rants and rages and slings back whiskey. Occasionally, she seems to remember his presence and flicks the belt like a whip over his torn skin.

Geralt stares with glazed eyes into a dark corner of the room, the single oil lamp’s light not reaching the shadows there, and he sucks in ragged, wheezing breaths.

_Stop, make it stop._

The belt bites into his shoulders and he gasps, shuddering.

_Please, stop, stop, stop._

The shadows seem to twist and condense. A boy stares back at him.

_It hurts, it hurts, please, stop._

His mother strikes him again as she passes and Geralt’s lashes flutter, unconsciousness a weighted blanket pressing him down into the floor, threatening to smother him.

_What do you want me to do?_

The question is quiet, spoken directly into Geralt’s head. It takes him a long moment to realise that it came from the boy in the shadows, though his mouth didn’t move. Geralt tries to respond but his lips sting and bleed worse when he moves them and his voice refuses to cooperate.

_Tell me, Geralt. What do you want me to do?_

Why hasn’t his mother noticed the boy? How did he get inside? Geralt feels a shiver of renewed fear when she comes by again, afraid she will see the boy. But she doesn’t and the boy remains hidden, watching Geralt with eyes that might be blue. It’s hard to tell with his vision blurring.

_Help me,_ he begs. _Please. It hurts so much. Make it stop. Please._

_Okay,_ the boy says.

He steps out of the corner and Geralt’s breath catches, waiting for his mother to scream and throw something, but the shadows sort of... cling. They stick to the boy and if Geralt wasn’t looking right at him, he thinks he wouldn’t see the boy at all. The boy comes and crouches by Geralt, laying a gentle hand on Geralt’s head.

_I’ll stop the pain, Geralt._

Then he lies on his side, mirroring Geralt’s position, and shuffles back until –

Geralt blinks, slow and confused. The boy is inside him, he can feel him pressed underneath Geralt’s skin, as though Geralt was only a set of clothes, can feel him looking out through Geralt’s eyes. The sensation is odd but not unpleasant, certainly not with the sharp-hot-stabbing pain in his ribs. He wonders if the boy is a demon or a faery come to possess a human body.

_What’s your name?_ Geralt asks, because everyone knows creatures like that don’t give their names.

_Jaskier,_ the boy replies easily, so maybe he’s not a faery or a demon.

Then Jaskier does something that Geralt doesn’t understand, something that nudges him out of the way in his own mind and lets Jaskier take control instead. Perhaps Geralt should be frightened but he is very tired and he has been frightened for so long that he can’t muster up any more of the feeling, not against the shadowy boy who has come to stop Geralt’s pain. Jaskier makes them inhale deeply and the burn in their chest flares horribly and if Geralt still had control over his body he’d be trembling and groaning –

The pain abruptly fades.

Geralt has a single second to bask in sweet relief before his mother staggers back over to him, muttering low and vicious under her breath, and kicks him in the back. Agony erupts and his scream is silent, reverberating beneath his skin –

And then Jaskier breathes in for them and the pain is washed away.

Wavering on the edge of delirium, Geralt sobs inside the confines of his head, desperate and exhausted and hurting very, very badly.

_Tell me what to do, Geralt._

Jaskier’s voice is quiet and gentle and so strong. Geralt latches onto it, ready to give the strange boy everything he has to offer, ready to trust Jaskier with every tiny, bleeding piece of himself.

_What do you want?_

The question is inexorable and Geralt does not fight it.

_Make it stop,_ he pleads. _Make her_ stop.

A weight settles in his bones, something deep and irreversible that takes his implicit acceptance for what it is and twines with his soul.

_Alright._

Jaskier pushes their shared body upright and Geralt feels a tingling in his ribs, in every bruise and cut his mother has given him. He realises with more than a little awe that Jaskier is healing him. Healing _them_. They turn as one and across the shadowy room Geralt’s mother startles, a half-empty bottle hanging from her fingertips. Her eyes widen and she sways in shock.

Then her face crumples into a hideous snarl and she spits, ‘Are you _defying_ me, boy? You _are_ , aren’t you. Just like your father, you worthless piece of –’

She staggers towards him and Geralt whimpers in renewed terror, trying to recoil, to curl up small and protect himself, panicking when his body doesn’t respond –

Jaskier lifts their hand palm out towards the maddened woman. ‘Stop,’ he says calmly, only it’s Geralt’s voice too and the dual tones ring out distinctly.

His m–

_Visenna,_ Jaskier supplies.

Visenna freezes, confusion twisting her expression. ‘W– what? What was that? Geralt?’

His – _their_ left eye prickles with sensation and Geralt knows (because Jaskier knows and they share more than just a body) that gold has given way to the blue he glimpsed. Visenna blanches, nearly falling as she stumbles back.

‘What’s going on?’ she demands, horrified. ‘Geralt? _Geralt?_ What are you doing, you wretch!’

‘You hurt Geralt,’ Jaskier says in their two-toned voice, cold anger bleeding through. ‘Now I will hurt you.’

Visenna splutters in outrage and lifts her bottle threateningly, lunging forward to bludgeon them. Geralt flinches but Jaskier doesn’t. He simply curls their fingers and twists their hand sharply to the side and then Visenna is swatted into the wall by some invisible force. She cries out in pain and collapses to the floor, blood dripping from a large cut on her temple. It pools with the glass shards littering the floor from her shattered bottle.

Jaskier walks them closer to her, Geralt mute with shock. Visenna jolts when Jaskier tips her head back with a finger under her chin and she recoils when he bends their body and leans in close.

‘Geralt,’ Jaskier murmurs with their voices. ‘Do you want me to make her stop?’

Geralt stares out of eyes that are no longer wholly his own at the woman who has made his life utter hell since as early as he can remember. He looks at her and despite all the suffering he has endured, his heart still cracks to think that she truly does not love him. He’s never wanted more than that and isn’t that reasonable, for a son? Is he so very awful?

_No, you are not awful, Geralt. If you wish, I will be your family now and I will love you more than anyone else._

There is only one answer to give.

_Yes,_ Geralt whispers in response to both offers.

Jaskier smiles with their mouth, showing far too many teeth, and Visenna quails. ‘As you wish.’

Later, they leave the little house that has been Geralt’s whole world for his single decade of life. Moonlight gleams on their hands and bare feet, painted with blood not theirs. Further down the hill loom the ramshackle buildings of the village that Geralt was so rarely allowed to visit and as much as he loved the relative freedom, he hated it more because the adults there were all as bad as each other. They looked at him and saw the marks of Visenna’s violence against him and they turned their heads away, uncaring.

Jaskier and Geralt look down at the village, contemplative in the quiet night. Geralt wonders how many other children born to those callous adults have eyes as wide and feral as his but no Jaskier to help them.

_Geralt,_ Jaskier begins.

_Yes, Jaskier?_

_Do you want me to make them stop?_

**Author's Note:**

> so i rewatched [this masterpiece](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ovHSQwp1n0) and then i had a case of first day quarantine jitters and . this Happened.
> 
> title sung by god himself in nct 127's sit down.


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